Posted: 11/27/05 at 9:02am
Here's an article from today's NY Times related to SOUVENIR, the terrific new comedy at the Lyceum theatre. See related SOUVENIR thread on the Main Board for comments on the show.
And When She Sang Badly She Was Better
By BERNARD HOLLAND
Published: November 27, 2005
"A GENERATION of opera singers between the world wars had as their ideal the smooth and impregnable voice that all would admire. They were professionals, occupying opera stages for the years that vocal health allotted them. They sang "Tosca" and "Carmen" and earned the public's attention, and sometimes its respect or even affection. A handful are remembered as stars. Some have afterlives on the occasional recording or in the recesses of an opera fanatic's memory. Mostly, they are forgotten.
The fame of Florence Foster Jenkins, on the other hand, will live forever. Jenkins, the rich woman with the bad voice, mesmerized a select public with a series of semiprivate recitals during the 1920's and 30's, culminating in a famous Carnegie Hall debut in 1944. At these events, shock and amusement, barely stifled, greeted her disastrous intonation, hooting timbre and crippled rhythm. You can hear all three in Judy Kaye's endearing impersonation (along with recordings of the real thing) in "Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins," on Broadway at the Lyceum Theater..."
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www.nytimes.com
Updated On: 11/27/05 at 09:02 AM
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